Sunday, July 29, 2012

“I’m a formalist in some ways and a humanist in others.
Those two things don’t reconcile very easily. But ultimately, I don’t see my
criticism as anything other than a personal response to what I happen to be
writing about, and a lot of that is bound up in where you are in your life.”

Peter sits down with New York Magazine TV critic Matt Zoller
Seitz to talk about the many different hats he has worn during his cinephile
life, which have included film critic, pop culture journalist, filmmaker, video
essayist, blogger, and more. Matt discusses growing up in Texas, discovering
New York City, and dissecting some of his favorite filmmakers. The two explore his
nature as both a film and TV critic, his discovery and love of video essays,
and how The New World inspired one of
the best film criticism blogs today. Finally, they dig into the Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July, which Matt explains
as one of the quintessential great narratives about a man discovering his true
self.

0:00-4:00 – Act One: Establishing Shots — Think Pieces on
Aurora

4:10-52:30 – Act Two: Deep Focus – Matt Zoller Seitz

53:33-1:11:38 – Act Three: Double Exposure – Born on the Fourth of July (Oliver
Stone)

Saturday, July 14, 2012

“If you are coming from a place where it make it so
manifestly plain that you literally do not know what you are talking about,
that is bad practice, and it’s spreading lies. It’s worth getting mad about. It’s
worth fighting against.”

In episode #1 of The
Cinephiliacs, Peter sits down with the former Premiere and current MSN
Movies chief film critic Glenn Kenny to talk about his life reviewing
movies. Glenn discusses his early childhood reading about films he never
thought he would see to his days as a minor rock star and music critic, eventually finding his way to Premiere.
The two also explore Glenn’s habit of policing bad criticism, his issues with
Joe Swanberg, and his relationship with David Foster Wallace. Finally, they get
into Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up,
examining how the film refutes categorization (and how Antonioni turns a photo
shoot into cinema’s greatest sex scene).

Monday, July 9, 2012

“It’s sad in some
ways to see the old paradigms of cinema dying in the U.S. But the emerging
paradigms of cinephilia in this part of the world are exciting to me, and I
don’t believe that we’re obliged only to lament the new state of things.”

-Jonathan Rosenbaum, Goodbye
Cinema, Hello Cinephilia

In the last twenty years, film culture and cinephelia specifically have
radically changed and altered the way we watch and think about film. No longer
is cinephilia something relegated to an elite group who have access to 35mm
prints and screening rooms in urban areas. Today, cinephiles come in all
different shapes and forms. They are critics, bloggers, festival programmers,
distributors, teachers, and often some strange combination of the bunch. They
watch films at theaters but also on DVDs and from streaming sites. Their taste
might by low budget horror films or Romanian cinema or animated films. There’s
no end to what form and shape a cinephile might be today.

So who are these
cinephiles? How did they become interested in film? And what makes them so passionate
about this medium? Welcome to The Cinephiliacs, a new podcast dedicated to
explore the forms of cinephilia all around us. Hosted by me, Peter Labuza, each
week will be dedicated to interviews with the great cinephiles of today. My
hope is to ask questions that will illuminate not only the history of
cinephiilia but also cinema. Think of it as “WTF With Marc Maron,” except with
cinephiles in the chair.

Each podcast will
include three acts. Act One: Establishing Shots will include some thoughts and
reflections by me on any current trends in criticism and cinema culture. Act
Two: Deep Focus will be the main portion of the show, in which I’ll sit down
with a cinephile to discuss their relationship to cinema. Finally, in Act
Three: Double Exposure, I’ll ask each guest to choose a film of particular
importance to them and briefly chat about why they find the film so
fascinating.

On that note, please
look for Episode #1 on July 16th, in which I’ll sit down with Glenn Kenny to discuss is work as a film critic at Premiere Magazine and beyond, as well as discuss Michelangelo
Antonioni’s Blow-Up.

MUBI

About The Cinephiliacs

The Cinephiliacs is a podcast exploring the past and future of cinephelia. Film critic Peter Labuza has interviewed critics, programmers, academics, filmmakers, and more about their relationship to film and film culture. Additionally, each guest will bring in a particular favorite film and discuss it with Labuza. Indiewire declares, "If you want to hear film critics talk at length about their craft, there are few better places on the Internet" and Keyframe Daily has called it "Exhibit A" for the future of film culture